


Wednesday Morning at Five O'Clock

by subversivegrrl



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Excessive smoking, F/M, Gen, dark night of the soul
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-06
Updated: 2016-08-06
Packaged: 2018-07-29 20:04:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7697695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/subversivegrrl/pseuds/subversivegrrl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To quote from F. Scott Fitzgerald, "...in a real dark night of the soul it is always three o’clock in the morning..." This came from that shot of the brim-full ashtray on the porch swing where Carol had been sitting before she left Alexandria.  Post-"The Same Boat"/pre-"East."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wednesday Morning at Five O'Clock

**Author's Note:**

> In draft this was titled "Carol's Fucked-Up Head," so, fair warning.

Daryl touches her chin, grounding her in her freefall horror, surrounded by the stink of gasoline, and out of nowhere he gathers her into his arms, his body a fortress. For one _second_ she can almost believe that all she has to do is to let him hold her and everything, all the darkness, will be held at bay.

But inside she’s screaming _not this not now I can’t you don’t love me how could you no one should_. She can’t stay she can’t leave she can’t risk showing him the rotting swamp that fills her and watching his expression turn to disgust when he finally recognizes it. She can’t look him in the eye but she can’t avoid him. She’s been trying to get away since before they left Georgia but something always stops her.

_\--getting Judith back to her family (that was stupid and selfish of her, she should have slipped away as soon as they approached the shack where she’d left Tyreese but she just wanted to witness that moment when Rick held his daughter again. A cynical little thrill,_ not around your children, huh, mister ‘my decisions are always right’? Well, here’s your daughter, safe and healthy. You’re welcome. _It’s impulses like that that prove she’s not fit for human company. What kind of monster gets a charge out of rubbing salt in a wound like that? She should have done it because it was the right thing. She did. And she didn’t.)_

_\--running off into Atlanta without a word to those they left behind, chasing some car because of a marking that made Daryl think of the one that took Beth. Anyone else and she would have held back, sent them on ahead. Get them out of the way so she could have escaped. It makes her want to scream that he’s tied so deeply into her psyche that she never even_ considered _not going with him._

_\--hurt and healing and carted off on their mission to rediscover civilization, packed into whatever vehicle like a sack of potatoes whether she wanted to be there or not. Damn polite society that wouldn’t let her say, no, thanks, I’ll make my own way, no THANK YOU I don’t want to go to Washington I don’t fucking believe the mullet knows anything (and didn’t that prove prophetic anyway, not that she ever said it out loud) because GODDAMNIT it was still beyond her to intentionally hurt those she loved. Wasn’t it? Or was she lying to herself? Why was it easier to kill than to hurt someone’s feelings?_

_Everyone had that thing that kept them going. Everyone but her. For Daryl she feared it_ was _her sometimes. That look he’d get, that squint-eyed disbelief, that worry. If she’d said what she thought. Even when he understood he didn’t like it. That she would give up. Walk away. LEAVE HIM. He never said it but he watched her like a mongoose watches a snake._

She doesn’t sleep.

She sits out there on that porch swing and smokes, lighting one stale cylinder off the butt of the last one, until the ashtray brims with crushed filters and the black turns faintly to gray and it can’t be put off any longer. One step back inside to pull her pack from behind the chair and she’s gone. 

None of them would have understood. How little of her remains. How leaving now means maybe she’ll die with her soul intact. (Not intact. Salvageable, maybe. Yet worthy of grace. They say if you truly repent in your heart, even on your deathbed, that you can still be taken up to glory. No matter what horrible acts you’ve committed. How many sins. She isn’t sure she believes that exactly, but she’s willing to chance it if it means she’ll see her girl again.) 

She wishes she’d been able to leave a note for Carl and Enid, thanking them for leaving such a convenient path of hand and toe holds, up the bend in the wall and over and down the other side, silent and invisible to the watchers. And final. 

It’s not home. It never was. They’re better off with her gone.

He’ll forget her in time.

She melts into the trees and wills herself not to look back.


End file.
